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Introduction

Schedule Everything (晨钟暮鼓) is a local-first scheduling tool for healthy habits, deep work, and consistent routines. Your weekly routine lives in plain TOML files; a background service sounds an alarm and keeps a dialog up at the start and end of every block until you respond. Tasks, deadlines, and habits sit alongside it in the rmd CLI and a local browser workspace.

The Schedule Everything browser workspace: the J-mode overview in light mode, the weekly overview in dark mode, and P mode at phone size

You build the routine with your own AI coding agent (Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, or Google Antigravity) through the schedule-everything plugin. Its build-schedule skill interviews you, confirms a plain-language summary, and writes the files; plan-day fills today's focus blocks with real tasks. Schedule Everything itself makes no AI calls.

How it works​

You ask your AI coding agent; the schedule-everything plugin runs rmd commands; rmd validates and writes local files that drive reminders and the browser workspace
  1. You ask your agent in plain words, for example "Build my weekly schedule".
  2. The plugin runs rmd: rmd check validates your files and reports their paths, rmd sync --json describes today's focus blocks and open tasks, and rmd sync --apply saves today's plan.
  3. Your files drive everything: the reminder service checks the schedule every minute and alerts with a sound and a dialog; rmd web shows the same data in the browser.

The daily rhythm​

A loop of five steps: build your routine once, add tasks, plan today, focus with reminders, and look back

Build your routine once, add tasks as they come (rmd add "Draft intro" 8), plan today's focus blocks with your agent, let the reminders keep you on track, and look back in the Activity gallery and the weekly overview.

Philosophy​

In an era of complex, cloud-based productivity suites, Schedule Everything takes a different approach: simplicity, privacy, and control. Your schedule should be:

  • Owned by you: stored locally, not on a remote server.
  • Versioned: treated like code, with history and diffs.
  • Distraction-free: running quietly in the background, alerting you only when necessary.
  • Programmable: configured with simple text files that agents and scripts can edit.

Core capabilities​

  • Declarative configuration: define your week in TOML. Reusable [time_blocks] (with start and end alarms) and [time_points] (single reminders) live in settings.toml; [common] entries apply to every day.
  • Persistent alerts: an audible cue plus a dialog that repeats until you respond.
  • Odd/even weeks: alternates between odd_weeks.toml and even_weeks.toml by ISO week number, for alternating timetables.
  • Tasks, deadlines, habits: importance 1–10, task types, postponement, deadline urgency, and daily habit check-ins.
  • J mode and P mode: a structured day or a flexible, task-first day.
  • Browser workspace: rmd web opens a local overview, timeline, year calendar, activity gallery, and weekly overview. See Browser workspace.
  • System integration: runs as a background service (launchd on macOS, a systemd user service on Linux) that survives reboots.

Evidence-informed defaults​

When the build-schedule skill has to fill gaps, it applies general, population-level defaults informed by sleep, movement, sedentary-behavior, and light-exposure research:

  • protect at least 7 hours of sleep opportunity with consistent sleep and wake times
  • avoid trading sleep for work when other options exist
  • spread about 150–300 minutes of moderate activity across the week, with strength work on 2 or more days when feasible
  • insert movement or recovery breaks during long desk-based work stretches
  • place demanding cognitive work in the user's best-focus windows
  • prefer daylight earlier in the day and avoid stimulating late-night work

These are heuristics rather than medical advice. Real user constraints, medical instructions, disability needs, or shift-work realities take priority.

Selected sources:

  • Watson et al., Recommended Amount of Sleep for a Healthy Adult (AASM PDF)
  • Sletten et al., The importance of sleep regularity (DOI)
  • WHO, Physical activity recommendations for adults (WHO)
  • Albulescu et al., "Give me a break!" (PLOS ONE)
  • Figueiro et al., The impact of daytime light exposures on sleep and mood in office workers (DOI)

Why TOML?​

Human-centric syntax​

TOML is designed to be read and written by people. It avoids the bracket noise of JSON and the indentation ambiguity of YAML.

Infrastructure as code​

Your schedule is configuration. Stored in text files, it can be put under version control, synced across machines with standard tools (rsync, git, Dropbox), and diffed to see exactly what changed.

Composable logic​

Define a pomodoro block once in settings.toml and reference it everywhere. Changing your focus length from 25 to 50 minutes is a one-line edit.

AI-ready​

Text configuration is the native language of coding agents. Hand your agent a timetable, a screenshot, or a description of your week; the build-schedule skill turns it into valid TOML and checks it with rmd check before it goes live.

Getting started​